Matthew Kale Snider (January 26, 1976 – October 9, 2023) was a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

. He graduated from the

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...

in 1999 with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

Sports Science Sports science is a discipline that studies how the healthy human body works during exercise, and how sport and physical activity promote health and performance from cellular to whole body perspectives. The study of sports science traditionally inc ...

and Health. The

Carolina Panthers The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. T ...

offered him an

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...

contract in April 1999, but he was waived from the

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

-based team in June. The

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...

then offered him a two-year contract in July 1999, and Snider made the roster as the back-up fullback and

special teams In American football, the specific role that a player takes on the field is referred to as their "position". Under the modern rules of American football, both teams are allowed 11 players on the field at one time and have "unlimited free substitu ...

performer after coming into camp as the fourth-string fullback. One highlight of his career at Green Bay was a preseason 66-yard touchdown reception at

Lambeau Field Lambeau Field is an outdoor athletic stadium in the north central United States, located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The home field of the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL), it opened in 1957 as City Stadium, replacing ...

. He played two seasons for Green Bay, who released him at the start of the 2001 season. The

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...

picked him up soon after. Snider played four games with the Vikings before they released him, and for the rest of the 2001 season he was not on a roster. The newly formed

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division, and play their home ga ...

signed Snider as a free agent in December 2001, making him one of the first ten players the franchise ever signed. The Texans released Snider after training camp in August 2002, ending his NFL career. Snider graduated from

Lower Merion High School Lower Merion High School is a public high school in Ardmore, a community in Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs. It is one of two high schools in the Lower Merion School District; the other one is Harriton High School. Lower Merion serves both Lowe ...

Ardmore, Pennsylvania Ardmore is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) spanning the border between Delaware and Montgomery counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The population was 12,455 at the 2010 census and had risen to 13,566 in the ...

, a suburb outside of Philadelphia, in 1994. He played football and basketball for the Lower Merion Aces, and he played two years of high school basketball with

Kobe Bryant Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely r ...

. In 1994, Snider's senior season and Bryant's sophomore season, he and Bryant were named team MVPs for the season. Snider was also named to the first-team all

Philadelphia Main Line The Philadelphia Main Line, known simply as the Main Line, is an informally delineated historical and social region of suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lying along the former Pennsylvania Railroad's once prestigious Main Line, it runs no ...

roster.

Personal life

Snider died in San Diego on October 9, 2023 at the age of 47.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Snider, Matt American football fullbacks Living people 1976 births Green Bay Packers players Minnesota Vikings players Richmond Spiders football players Players of American football from Des Moines, Iowa Lower Merion High School alumni Obituary: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/qctimes/name/matthew-snider-obituary?id=53372087